3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2010, and 3.8 percent in the second quarter of 2010. But no 3 percent-plus quarters since then.

The first nine quarters of the Reagan Recovery, by contrast, looked like this: 5.1 percent, 9.3 percent, 8.1 percent, 8.5 percent, 8.0 percent, 7.1 percent, 3.9 percent, 3.3 percent, 3.8, percent, 3.4 percent. In fact, the Reagan Boom went from the first quarter of 1983 until the second quarter of 1986 without notching a sub-3 percent GDP quarter.

So, while the Reagan Recovery quickly made up for lost years of growth, not so much for the Obama Recovery

More on Obama vs Reagan from Economics One, the following three images:

The EPA announced new rules mandating the use of 36 billion gallons worth of renewable fuels (like ethanol) by 2020.

This summer President Obama needlessly instituted, not one, but two outright drilling bans in the Gulf of Mexico.

After rescinding his outright offshore drilling ban, President Obama has refused to issue any new drilling permits in the Gulf, a policy that the Energy Information Administration estimates will cut domestic offshore oil production by 13% this year

Interior Secretary Salazar announced that the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic coast, and the Pacific coast will not be developed, effectively banning drilling in those areas for the next seven years;

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced new global warming regulations for oil refineries;
Interior Secretary Salazar announced new rules making it more difficult to develop energy resources on federal land.

The Federal Reserve said the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That puts Americans roughly on par with where they were in 1992.

one key economic data component has been quite good at predicting presidential elections, and that is consumer confidence. If the consumer confidence index is at 100 or higher, then the incumbent party is likely to win. If not, then the opposition party wins

The table above shows that consumer confidence levels correctly predicted the outcome in 9 of the past 11 presidential elections… The near-perfect predictive power of the consumer confidence index essentially says that at the time of voting, the single most important issue comes down to the economy. As James Carville once said, “it’s the economy, stupid!” Forget the tough talks on terrorism or the flowery talks of hope; voters are rewarding or punishing the incumbent on the economy.

Yes, folks, the economy had already started to turn around in the quarter before President Obama took office. The healing had begun before the Stimulus package, and before he started propping the economy up with huge deficit spending.

The number of Americans age 16 or older who decided not to work or even to seek a job increased by 8,332,000 to a record 88,839,000 in President Barack Obama’s first term, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the 10 previous recessions since the Great Depression, prior to this last recession, the economy recovered all jobs lost during the recession after an average of 25 months after the prior jobs peak (when the recession began), according to the records kept by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. So the job effects of prior post Depression recessions have lasted an average of about 2 years. But under President Obama, by April, 2013, 64 months after the prior jobs peak, almost 5½ years, we still have not recovered all of the recession’s job losses. In April, 2013, there were an estimated 135.474 million American workers employed, still down about 2.6 million jobs from the prior peak of 138.056 million in January, 2008.

…

In the 10 post depression recessions before President Obama, the economy recovered the lost GDP during the recession within an average of 4.5 quarters after the recession started. But it took Obama’s recovery 16 quarters, or 4 years, to reach that point. Today, 21 quarters, or 5 plus years, after the recession started, the economy (real GDP) has grown just 3.2% above where it was when the recession started. By sharp contrast, at this point in the Reagan recovery, the economy had boomed by 18.6%, almost one fifth.

…real GDP growth under Obama has been the worst of any President in the last 60 years!

But it’s even worse than that. Obama’s real GDP growth has actually been less than half as much as the worst of any President in the last 60 years. In other words, even if you doubled actual GDP growth under President Obama, it would still be the worst record of any President in the last 60 years!

…the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey show that real median household income declined by more than $4,500 during Obama’s first term, about 8%, meaning effectively that the middle class has lost annually the equivalent of one month’s pay under Obama.

…Poverty has soared under Obama, with the number of Americans in poverty increasing to the highest level in the more than 50 years that the Census Bureau has been tracking poverty. Over the last 5 years, the number in poverty has increased by nearly 31%, to 49.7 million, with the poverty rate climbing by over 30% to 16.1%.

For the entire U.S. workforce, employers have added far more part-time employees in 2013—averaging 93,000 a month, seasonally adjusted—than full-time workers, which have averaged 22,000. Last year the reverse was true, with employers adding 31,000 part-time workers monthly, compared with 171,000 full-time ones.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged that Obamacare regulations have caused employers to hire part-time workers, rather than full-time employees, but refused to say if Congress should delay the law’s mandates.

For the first time since the Carter presidency, more businesses are failing in America than are being created, according to the Brookings Institution. Moreover, the contrast between “firm entry” and “firm exit” during the Obama “recovery” is even more stark than during the Great Depression.

An unprecedented number of men–one in six–between the ages of 25 and 54, what should be their prime earning years, are either unemployed or out of the work force entirely.

…

One in eight, the highest proportion since record-keeping began in 1955, are out of the labor force… Another 2.9 million men in the 25-54 age group haven’t given up–they are still in the labor force–but are currently unemployed.

The employment-to-population ratio is lower than it was at the official end of the Great Recession in mid-2009. The labor-force participation rate dropped to 62.8%, the lowest since the late 1970s. …from 2010 to 2013 median family income corrected for inflation declined by 5%, even as average family income rose by 4%. Only families at the very top of the income distribution saw gains during this period. Family incomes between the 40th and 90th percentiles stagnated, while families at the bottom experienced substantial declines.

The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity — almost all natural gas — was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.

14 Responses to “Obama’s Economic Successes: A Roundup”

Wait- don’t most economic recoveries feature skyrocketing unemployment rates, record high food, fuel and commodity prices, a cratering housing market and the dollar taking the worst beating its had in a generation?

Glad you liked the flag-counter. I thought it was a nifty little widget that occasionally drives me to distraction.

Found your blog courtesey of Diary of Daedalus….altho’ rather than step back into the wayback machine for a blow-by-blow rehash of my departure from Blog Version of Animal Farm, I’ll simply say that rather than walk away, I saw the writing on the wall and decided to make myself as much of a nuisance to the ‘new normal’ at LGF as I could.

I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was Scott Brown. Apparently they were butthurt over a moderate New England republican winning an election…

Just think, Simon, if you’re just a very ordinary American consumer in the USA and you haven’t had the benefit of cheap imports from China of ordinary consumables for the last two decades or more, won’t you be feeling a much greater squeeze all this while? But dependence on cheap imports is just post phoning the unpleasant eventuality.

Stocks sink after U.S. outlook slashed
By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporterApril 18, 2011: 4:42 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — U.S. stocks cut some losses late Monday afternoon, but still finished the session sharply lower after Standard and Poor’s cut its long-term outlook on U.S. debt to negative.

“I would say investors have been anticipating this somewhat, but when the shoe falls, it sends a vibration throughout the market,” said Ron Kiddoo, chief investment officer at Cozad Asset Management.